Calle de Jerte

One hundred and eight metres of slope high in La Latina, between calle de San Buenaventura and the parque de la Cornisa. The old maps —⁠Texeira in 1656, Espinosa in 1769⁠— still showed open ground here. The street came later, around the third quarter of the 19th century, when the city council tidied up the land trapped between Philip IV’s old wall and the Manzanares ravine. The name travels to northern Cáceres, to the town of Jerte. In August 1809 its people had blocked the French and captured three soldiers. The reprisal was total: a force surrounded the village so no one could come down from the mountains to put out the fire, and burned the two hundred and seventy-five houses one after another. Only the church, the town hall and a few foundations were left standing. Naming streets after towns razed in the Peninsular War was a 19th-century Madrid custom. This stretch of slope carries the memory of a burned valley in its sign.

On 21 August 1809, the Duke of Alsace ordered the town of Jerte completely surrounded so that the townspeople, who had taken refuge in the mountains, could not put out the fire. Some 275 houses burned over several days. Only eight were left standing. It was the town’s parish priest, Félix Caleya, who afterwards obtained from the Crown a five-year exemption from taxes so that the town could rebuild.